


Without words

by thepurplewombat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, and then i wrote a fic, i read a poem, ivyblossom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/pseuds/thepurplewombat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I read Ivyblossom's Fan Pome yesterday and this little ficlet popped up in my head so why not.</p><p>You can find the pome here: http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/82257797044/fan-pome</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivyblossom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyblossom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Fan Pome](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/46370) by Ivyblossom. 



I find it stuffed between the pillows of Sherlock’s thinking couch, a plain A4 sheet of paper crumpled into a ball and shoved away, hidden from sight.

I open it, of course I do. I might not have, if it had been any other couch, any other flat, but this is Sherlock’s couch, and Sherlock’s (not mine, not anymore) flat, and this is Sherlock, who doesn’t think about privacy the way other people do.

And I find myself reading…what? A poem? It doesn’t rhyme, but it’s not prose, and I’m about to dismiss it as something he’s copied from somewhere for indecipherable Sherlockian reasons when I see my name and I read and read and  _read_.

It’s like a little glimpse inside the mad whirl that is Sherlock Holmes, a barrage of thoughts and impressions and (yes, of course) it’s actually pretty insulting (and strange, because  _Sherlock_ , and I’ve never been equipped to understand him when his mind goes off on a tangent - my job is to stand and wait, and tether him so that he can come back and explain it all to us mere mortals) right up until…

_you wouldn’t ask  
but I’d say yes_

And what follows is…

Well.

The first three times I read it, I’m not quite sure what to think. By the fourth time, I know  _exactly_  what to think, and when Sherlock comes stumbling in an hour later, fresh from a case I hadn’t joined him for, I’m waiting with the poem (and it is a poem, he wrote music  for The Woman but a poem, a monologue, the gift of his own thoughts unfiltered, for me) smoothed out over my knee and my forehead resting on my clenched fist.

He stops in the doorway, frozen deer-in-the-headlights because of course he recognizes the page, his own handwriting.

I stand, but I don’t look at him, and I can  _feel_  him steeling himself for whatever I’m about to say.

"John, I…" but that’s all he says, just my name the way only he ever says it, and Jesus  _fuck_  I’ve been an idiot.

"Sherlock," I say, but I don’t say anything else because words, what do we need words for? We’re Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and so without words I ask.

In the language of hands, my hands reaching for the lapels of the coat he hasn’t taken off yet, in a glance at his face and then in the language of mouths, of lips and teeth and tongue, I ask.

His reply is untutored, unskilled. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, not really, but his hands come up to cup my head and his eyes close, and that’s as much of a reply as anyone is likely to need, even if they’re an idiot.

In the language of lips and tongues I ask him without words, and he says yes.


End file.
